Well, we’re home with our not-so-little Griffin (9lbs, 9oz, 23 inches, in case you missed the stats). The past 48 hours have been a blur, but we have this little cutie to prove that it all really happened.

I’ll probably write up a detailed “birth story” later on just so I can look up the details later, but the summary is that I avoided the interventions I really didn’t want (pitocin induction, C-section) and that the folks at Rex were mostly very supportive of my preferences. Being forced to lie still for 30 minutes during transition with the fetal monitor belt on was probably what doomed my natural childbirth attempt (I had been holding up pretty well by walking/moving a lot), but I think I made the right choice, and neither me nor Grifflet appear to have suffered any ill effects as a result of the medication. He latched on like a champ within minutes of birth and the feedings have been going well so far.

A hospital birth is absolutely brutal on new parents. I had been up since 4am on the 17th with contractions, and I woke up Jag at 4:30, so we were running on very little sleep going into labor. After giving birth at 9:14pm, I got back to the postpartum room after 11, and after a brief visit from all the grandparents, the constant stream of sleep interruptions started, from Griffin crying for food/diaper change/cuddles, to people wandering in to take vitals and give medication, to the 5:20am visit from the lab tech who wanted 3 vials of blood, to the 9pm visit from the lady getting a heel stick for the PKU screen, ad infinitum. We even got harassed during labor; I was ready to strangle the woman from the cord blood bank who showed up to give her spiel while I was having intense transition contractions 1-2 minutes apart. (Well, I was ready to strangle EVERYONE by that point.) I feel so much better now that we’re at home; we all three managed to all get in a nice nap this afternoon, and at least I know my sleep tonight will be interrupted only by Griffin, not some nurse wanting to give a HepB shot at midnight (?!?!?).

Jag was great during labor and we’re settling into the whole diapers and feedings routine. We sure know a lot more about diaper changes and soothing a newborn than we when Griffin woke us up with inconsolable screaming at 1:30am on the 18th.